Connecticut: 95.7K QHPs thru 11/08 including auto-renewals?

OK, this is a bit confusing. Over the past few years, more and more of the state-based exchanges have shifted from waiting until the end of Open Enrollment to officially report auto-renewals of existing enrollees...to going ahead and auto-renewing everyone up front, and then subtracting those current enrollees who actively cancel their renewals.

This has caused a bit of confusion, since the exchanges don't always make it clear who's being counted and when.

Case in point: Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange. Last year they reported 12,777 enrollees during the first two weeks of Open Enrollment...and also noted that there were another 85,000 existing enrollees who hadn't yet actively renewed their policies as of 11/18.

This year, their press release page states the following:

2020 Open Enrollment Results (Stats will be available starting Friday November 8, 2019 by 5pm EST)

Qualified Health Plans (QHP):

  • Net Total QHP Enrollment: 95,705
  • 2020 OE Acquisition Summary: 2,007

Overall Volume

  • Unique Website Visitors: 37,357
  • Calls Handled: 27,344

Medicaid: Completed applications/redeterminations processed through the integrated eligibility system: 9,182

I'm assuming this means that they've joined several other state exchanges and are front-loading their auto-renewals of everyone currently enrolled. I'm further assuming that of those 95,705 people, 2,007 of them are new enrollees. If so, that means they'll have to enroll just 15,361 more people over the next six weeks to beat last year's total.

According to the official 2019 CMS Public Use File, last year Connecticut enrolled 11,155 people in QHPs in the first 10 days...but didn't actually enter auto-renewals into the system until the end of November, so that's not much to compare with.

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